PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly
Premiere issue of PS (June 1951). Art by Will Eisner.
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| Categories | preventive maintenance |
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| Frequency | monthly |
| Publisher | Department of the Army |
| First issue | June 1951 |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Redstone Arsenal, Alabama |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 0475-2953 |
PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly is series of United States Army technical bulletins published since June 1951 as a monthly magazine with comic book-style art to illustrate proper preventive maintenance methods. (The magazine's title derives from its being a "postscript" to technical manuals and other published maintenance guidance.)
The Army had experienced some degree of acceptance and success during WWII with the instructional publication Army Motors, for which Corporal Will Eisner, an established comic-book writer-artist-editor, had been appropriated to draw such characters as Beetle Bailey-like Private Joe Dope, Lauren Bacall look-alike and "" Corporal Connie Rodd, and Master Sergeant Half-Mast McCanick. Eisner left the Army as a Chief Warrant Officer to start American Visuals Corporation, a contract graphic art company. In response to a sudden need for maintenance instruction at the start of the Korean War, the Army contracted American Visuals in 1951 to create instructional material similar to Eisner's work on Army Motors for the Army Ordnance Corps's new publication, PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly.
Eisner was the publication's artistic director from its inception through the end of 1971. The magazine's artists have included Eisner, Murphy Anderson, Joe Kubert, Dan Spiegle, Scott Madsen, Malane Newman, Alfredo Alcala, and Mike Ploog. The magazine from its inception has been, written, researched, and edited by Department of the Army civilians.
The magazine is published in digest size, with 2-color spots and a four-color cover and continuity. The continuity consists of a short story told through the use of a series of panels like any comic book, often with a theme borrowed from popular fiction. The home office of PS was located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, from April 1951 through January 1955, when it was moved to Raritan Arsenal, New Jersey. It was moved again in October 1962 to Fort Knox, Kentucky. It remained there until July 1973, when it moved to the Lexington-Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky. In June 1993, it moved to Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.
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